Far away from MorksVille, Twilight, and her team, a tall dark castle resting on the side of a mountain looms in the smoke. Inside, a long throne room, with ragged curtains barely covering the smashed stain-glass windows and shading the area in shadows, a large black and purple throne stands alone, gathering dust as it bathes in silence. This peacefulness dies abruptly as the massive doors at the other end of the room swing open, with Midnight, Morks, and Atlas walking in. Midnight takes flight and glides to her throne, causing what’s the remaining of the curtains to fly off along with their brackets, barely illuminating the torn and dusty red carpet. The empress then takes her seat at the throne as a unicorn Mork runs to the side of the large throne and levitates a chess board in front of her, pieces set and everything. “Be gone minions, go check on the others while Atlas and I play.” Midnight commands, the Morks comply and all of them except for the one exit the chamber, closing the doors behind them. “Atlas, come.” The brown stallion slowly walks towards her, examining the walls, ceiling, and floor.

“Is this Celestia’s throne room?” He nervously asks, quarter way across the room.

“It was, I’m still under renovation, but when I am done, this place will sparkle greater than the Crystal Empire.”

“Oh really, what are you going to do? Torches, sewage, choir of Morks that only sing in vowels?”

“Quit being a neigh-sayer and come here.”

“…”

“Now,” She levitates Atlas and drops him in front of the chess board, coming within a meter of the empress. Midnight looks down at the board and turns to her minion. “Sir, do you mind flipping the board, let our guest play first.” The board spins in air, stopping with the white pieces in front of Atlas. “Let’s talk.” Atlas picks up a pawn in his mouth and moves it two squares forward. “How are you able to use a crossbow?” Midnight uses an arm to make her move and the game continue as the two banter.

“Are you seriously back to that?”

“I’m just curious, and I could use your abilities to teach my Earth Ponies to make them less useless.”

“Well you’re going to have to put that stupid looking armour on me to get me to talk.”

“I would, but your allergies are a bit of a hindrance.”

“Well you’re not going to get me to tell you any information unless you can come up with a decent reason why. Why do you think you’re so worthy? You’re just some freak with a thirst for power, like my mother.”

“You’ve been under the guise of propaganda, created by the princesses. Their words of friendship, equality, peace, it’s all a load of lies. They’ve let many ponies, old and young, suffer from poverty and mistreatment, and not even batting an eye. I should know, my family was driven to the absolute bottom despite their contributions to the old and new kingdom being significant. My kingdom, once it reaches it’s prime, will be that all property is publicly owned and each pony works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. All will no longer suffer and it will be perfect.”

“Well sorry to smash your dreams, but it will never work, how insane do you have to be to think that it would possibly work.”

“It will not possibly fail, since all will be under my leadership, nothing will go astray.”

“What about the mares and us? How will you continue this if they will not comply?”

“He has a point,” the Mork adds, “what about the RAEM?”

“The what?”

“The Resistance Against Empress Midnight, mostly consisting of mares and a couple of stallions immune to the conversion.”

“See your most moodiness, even your mindless minion’s aware you’re on a downfall.”

“Excuse me?”

“Shut up.”

“Atlas,” Midnight interrupts, “I will show you how much better this new kingdom will be than the destroyed old kingdom of Celestia.”

“Oh really?”

“Wow!” A male voice yells from farther down the side of the castle, “They’ve got a balcony pool!”

“Daniel, you might wanna stop yourself there,” another voice replies, “it’s probably filled with bird droppings and mold.”

“Come on Aaron,” a third voice adds, “they probably clean it. If I, the one and only Jack, can do a cannonball in it, then you’ll have to too.”

“I wouldn’t do that,”

“GERANAHOOF!!!” A loud splash is then heard, followed by coughing and groaning.

“Told you so.”

“Well now that your little theory is confirmed, it’s your turn.”

“Gah...”

“Aw, he didn’t splash.”

“Now,” Midnight says, “shall we continue with our-” The doors swing open as a red unicorn Mork burst in the room and speaks,

“Empress Midnight,”

“What?”

“Our latest assault has failed, the primary cause of this is,”

“Let me guess, Borris.”

“Correct.”

“Collect yourselves and continue regular duties.”

“Yes empress,” The Mork leaves the rooms and closes the door behind him.

“As we were,”

“I see you keep great care of your pool…” Atlas replies.

“I never really had a use for it; I merely added that just for aesthetics.”

“Seems legit enough, just like this!” He moves his white rook drastically across the board, knocking over the black bishop a couple squares in front of the king. “Check!” Midnight looks down in surprise and realizes the only move she has is to move her queen in between the two, meaning that Atlas’ second queen could take out the piece, putting her in checkmate.

“Sneaky…” Midnight pulls out a black queen and a black rook from under the board and lifts the white rook back near the edge.

“Wait, what are you doing?”

“The resistance now has two queen pieces, thanks to Twilight and her group. I cannot penetrate their defense with their first queen in the way, however…” She swaps the white rook with the black one and uses it to take out the dragon piece next to it, putting the white king in check.

“This isn’t how you play the game.” Midnight then takes out the rook with the first white queen Atlas had, followed by another black bishop taking out the second queen. “Miss,” She then places the black queen she added between the threatening rook, blocking it from her king. “Can I help you?”

“I think you have helped me enough.”

“I could do more, maybe give you a guide on how to play chess, a pamphlet, somepony with common sense.”

“Be quiet…” The empress then takes out the second white queen with her original. She then moves it in front of the white king and a white gleaming smile stretches across her face.

“I’m not an expert on this, but I’m pretty sure the last I checked, this is not how you play any game.”

“Checkmate…”

“Yes, with a lot of cheating, you can win a game of chess.”

“Mork, shut this Earth Pony up from his sarcasm and take him with the others, there they shall have a glorious feast.”

“Yes ma’am.” The minion replies, levitating Atlas in the air and carrying him out. By herself, Empress Midnight laughs menacingly as she turns to face a destroyed window.

“Thank you Atlas Goni, you have given me just the perfect plan to end this oppression.” She leaps from the window and opens her wings, casting a large black shadow against the descending wall of the palace. She circles her home, spiraling lower and lower to the ground. She glides into the front doors and pilots her way through many decapitated rooms, reaching a stone staircase heading down. She sharpers her claws against the mossy brick as she makes her way down to a large cavern, folding her metallic wings upon reaching the bottom. She looks to her left and right to see hundreds of small prison cells laid out across the walls, each containing a mare staring blacking outside the cell bars. Not a single sound is heard except for the clomping of hooves clomping against the floor of solid rock. A harmonica’s whistle breaks the silence, catching Midnight off her guard and causing her to jump. She turns to see a white unicorn with frilly blue hair playing it. “Knock it off.”

“Well this is what I’m reduced to.” The mare snaps back, the empress rolls her red eyes and her horn flashes, causing the harmonica playing pony to stare blankly into the nothingness like the rest of her sistren.

“I always knew Boris’ spells were unusable, this hallucinatory spell only works on you mares and dragons, and even then it doesn’t last.” She continues her stride to the end of the chamber and enters a small room with lab equipment strewn all across the floors, ceiling, and walls. She looks over the mess and sees a black unicorn brewing from a cauldron while the three hostage princesses are kneeling with shackles connecting their back legs to the nearby wall. The unicorn pulls three small pots from the cauldron and gives them to his three friends.

“Here you go, this should help.” He says, trying his best to comfort the princesses. They sip the steaming liquid from their pots and Celestia replies,

“Thank you Boris, even in the worst of situations, you manage to not succumb to anger.”

“Thank you your highness, I shall never betray you.”

“I beg to differ,” the empress argues walking towards Twilight’s version of Boris. “Have you found a way to turn mares into Morks?”

“Working on it, say, some of these ingredients you gave to me seem really dangerous,”

“Yeah I know, that’s why I’m having you do it.”

“Why bother? Shouldn’t that spell the other me gave you earlier work?”

“It doesn’t, it’s as much of a failure as you are. And you know the consequences if you fail me.” Midnight turns to Celestia, Luna, and Cadence, all looking back in fear.

“I know, I’m trying, but females are very different from males. Instead of attraction to the pheromone, the mares instead have a highly negative reaction to it for some reason. I don’t get it, you manage to create those monstrosities for wings, a way to turn stallions into your minions, and learned high-class combat in exile, and yet you can’t make a mare into a Mork.”

“I’ve had enough of Atlas’ criticism already and I’ve barely had any good sleep since banishment.”

“Well that explains why you’re so cranky all the time.”

“But don’t worry; soon, I will be able to sleep with peace of mind and the worlds in my hooves.”